10/04/2025
A Letter Your Teen Can’t Write to You
Dear Parent,
I wish I could write you this letter.
About this battle we’re fighting.
I need it.
I can’t tell you that—I don’t have the words—and even if I did, it wouldn’t make sense. But I need this battle. Badly. I need to hate you right now, and I need you to survive it. I need you to survive me hating you, and you hating me back. I need this fight even though I hate it too.
It doesn’t even matter what we’re fighting about—curfew, homework, laundry, my messy room, going out, staying in, boyfriends, girlfriends, no friends, bad friends. It doesn’t matter. I need to push back on it, and I need you to push back too.
I desperately need you to hold the other end of the rope. Hold it tight while I thrash around on mine—while I look for handholds and footholds in this strange new world I’ve landed in. I used to know who I was, who you were, who we were. Now I don’t. Now I’m searching for my limits, and sometimes the only way to find them is by pulling against you. By stretching everything I used to know until it breaks. That’s when I can feel I exist, and for a moment I can breathe.
I know you miss the sweet little kid I used to be. I know, because I miss them too—and that ache makes this stage even harder.
I need this fight to teach me something: that no matter how ugly or intense my feelings get, they won’t destroy you or me. I need you to love me at my worst, even when it looks like I don’t love you. I need you to love yourself and me for both of us right now.
I know how awful it feels to be disliked and called “a bad person.” Inside, I feel that way too. But I need you to endure it—and to reach out for support from other adults—because I can’t help you right now. Host your “how to survive a teenager” support group if you have to. Vent about me behind my back if it keeps you steady. I don’t care. Just don’t let go. Don’t drop this rope.
This battle will teach me that my shadow isn’t bigger than my light. That ugly feelings don’t have to end relationships. That I can listen to myself even when it disappoints other people.
This particular fight will end. Like any storm, it will blow over. I’ll forget it. You’ll forget it. And then it will come back. And I’ll need you to hold the rope again. Over and over, for years.
I know this isn’t rewarding work. I know I’ll probably never thank you for it—or even acknowledge what you’re doing. I’ll probably criticize you instead. It will feel like whatever you do is never enough.
But I’m counting on your ability to stay in the fight. No matter how much I argue. No matter how much I sulk. No matter how big my silence gets.
Please keep holding your end of the rope. Know that right now, you’re doing the single most important job anyone could do for me.
With love,
Your Teen
